I recently read about Places and Non-Places and thought it would be fun to try it out on Downtown Spartanburg.

Results#

I calculated a Place:Non-Place ratio of 0.91:1 (47.55% place) for Downtown Spartanburg. This shows slightly more land is used for Non-Places than Places as represented by this map:

Caveats#

First, a few caveats. This is a very rough estimate. I created the map using a combination of hand-tracing and the publicly available data of the parcels in Spartanburg.¹ As a result, not all of the Places/Non-Places line up perfectly.

It’s June, so we’ve hit the halfway mark of 2025. In the spirit of reflection and review¹ I’d like to share six things I’ve experienced this year that I love.

WhatWillMakes - How I Built a Mechanical Calculator#

This video came out in December of 2024, but I only discovered it this year. This video was made specifically for me. Will not only creates a mechanical calculator primarily out of wood, but also offers a historical analysis of the calculator itself. He analyzes the socioeconomic conditions that led thinkers like Leibniz to commission skilled craftspeople to actually build the machine and embeds his own experiencing designing and building the calculator within that.

About a month ago, I was speaking to Liv from The Walking Spartan about, unsurprisingly, walkability and bikeability in our city. In passing, they mentioned being interested in finding the distribution of the Dan across our city council districts. The conversation moved on, but the idea sat with me for a while.

I’ve been sick for the past two days, so instead of working I thought it would be fun to try to figure this out.

In the last three years, I’ve re-discovered my love of reading. As a kid, I was a voracious reader.¹ Slowly the amount that I read for pleasure dwindled. When I was in high school, I read maybe 3 books a year for fun. By the time I was in college, that dropped down to at most 1.

What drove me back to reading was actually a desire to sleep better. There’s a general consensus that limiting screen time before bed will improve you sleep with the recommendation being no screens 2 hours before you go to sleep. So what better to do in that time than start reading?

I recently turned 30 and wrote a silly post about converting 30 into different bases.

The idea came when I was trying to understand why we consider turning 30 to be significant. We celebrate other ages because they mark some cultural or legal transition. Bar and bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, and sweet sixteens are considered to be coming-of-age ceremonies. In America, 18 and 21 are legally significant because they mark legal adulthood¹ and legal alcohol consumption, respectively.

I turn 30 today. To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to write a script that ouputs the number 30 in the first 30 bases.

convert_base.sh#

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#! /bin/sh

if [ "$2" = 1 ]; then
    result=$(printf "%0.s1" $(seq 1 $1))
    echo "$result"
    exit 0
fi

number=$1
base=$2
result=""
while [ $number -gt 0 ]; do
    remainder=$(( number % base ))
    if [ $remainder -lt 10 ]; then
        result="$remainder$result"
    else
        letter=$(printf "\\$(printf '%03o' $(( remainder + 55 )) )")
        result="$letter$result"
    fi
    number=$(( number / base ))
done

echo "$result"

Explanation#

A couple of things worth noting:

Spring has arrived and our yard is full of life again. With the blooming of everything we have planted also comes everything we did not plant. Weeding is a necessary and laborious practice. It is also rather monotonous and offers space for uninterrupted thought. While weeding recently I could not help but think about our relationship with the practice itself. If I were a 17th century French philosopher I might call this “Meditations on Weeding”.

AI is like AC.¹ This is not a hot² take, but a reformulation of an idea you’ve likely seen many times already.

The internet is awash with blogs, podcasts, and videos on the costs and benefits of using or not using AI. Recently, vibe coding has been the hot new thing. We’re now seeing stories of engineers lamenting the atrophy of their coding abilities as they’ve offloaded the responsibilities of writing code to their LLM of choice.

Every spring, we try to grow some vegetables, fruits, and/or flowers in our garden. Every spring, our local deer feast on our vegetables, fruits, and/or flowers.¹

In previous years we tried deterrents and repellents like Irish Spring soap, marigolds², and ultrasonic repellers. The ultrasonic repellers had the best results, but sometimes the deer figure them out.

We also tried makeshift guards and cages built with whatever we had on hand. These were more effective. However, they were prone to falling over in storms, annoying to move, and an eyesore.

Common Threads: Use Friction Strategically#

This is a part of a series called “Common Threads”. My goal is to bring together ideas from different sources I interact with and synthesize them into a post as a means of learning in public. See the introductory post for a slightly more in-depth explanation of what this is and why I’m doing it.

Fibers#

• You’re not addicted to tiktoks/reels, you’re addicted to the scrolling
• We should have more friction in our lives
• On Friction
• Embracing Slow Tech

Definition#

Outside of the ideal scenarios of physics problems, friction exists.¹ This is not a good or bad thing, it simply is. Every time we do something, there is some resistance we must overcome. We can use this strategically. Reduce friction for behaviors you want to encourage. Increase friction for those you want to prevent.